A judge had some trouble getting the message across to a Te Puke pruner that he was fined $500 for possessing more than 1000 pipi above the daily limit.
"Cut it out. No more of this please. Get a permit," Judge Thomas Ingram told Ted Victor Amoroa Te Hira in Tauranga District Court today.
"I am a bit deaf. You will have to yell, sir," the 43-year-old replied.
Judge Ingram: "I am starting to realise that."
He had almost finished dealing with the case on a non-appearance basis and ordered a $1000 fine when Te Hira asked from the back of the court if it was his charge being heard.
Called forward to the dock, he admitted being found with a sack containing 1171 pipi at Pukehina near Te Puke on December 20. The haul was for a birthday, he said.
The daily limit per person is 150.
Discovering that Te Hira could not afford to pay $1000 because he was supporting four people on $600 a week, Judge Ingram halved the penalty.
As he walked out of the courtroom, Te Hira could be heard loudly announcing that his transgression had cost him $500.
In another fisheries prosecution Jack Takimatua Phillips, 45, a Rotorua builder, was fined $2600 for exceeding the daily limit of green lipped mussel at Newdicks Beach near Maketu in the Western Bay of Plenty.
He jointly had 261 of the shellfish with two other people.
Phillips was also fined $250 for possessing nine undersized paua on the same day, January 4.
"I take these matters seriously. This is a very substantial departure from the limits," said Judge Ingram.
"People need to know that taking resources that belong to all of us is a matter that will have serious repercussions."
When he appeared before the same judge in June one co-offender, Jesse Phillips, 46, a Rotorua youth worker, was ordered to do an hour's community work for each of the excess 111 greenlipped mussels taken.
Phillips did not get a monetary penalty because he already had outstanding fines of $11,000.
